My brother was trimming back some trees in his yard and gave me a call saying he had a bunch of cut branches and do I want them to make something. Umm, do I want them? Really, did he have to ask? Silly wabbit. Please.

Well, I wasn’t exactly sure what I would make first. Then I remembered some cool candle holders I had seen on Pinterest a while back and I was inspired.

So the first thing I did was give some branches a good cooking…

It’s always a good idea to heat treat wood to get rid of any critters that may be lurking. Even if there aren’t any visible buggers, there could always be larvae (ewww!) in the wood and you don’t want any of those creepy crawlies making your home theirs. So stick your wood in an oven and bake. To kill all the buggers, the core of your wood needs to reach 135 degrees. Depending on the thickness of your wood, cooking time will vary. To be safe, I heated my branches at 170 for four hours. That might have been overkill (no pun intended, sort of), but the minimum temperature of my oven is 170. So I just let ’em cook while I went about my daily business. The fun part of this is that my house smelled all woodsy afterward.

Now at this point, if you like that natural rustic look you can simply go ahead and drill your candles holes (more on that later), but I wanted to paint my candle holders.

To get rid of any loose fragments or dust, I ran my branches under a running faucet and gave them a good wipe down with some steel wool.

After the water dried, I gave my branches a coat of white paint. By starting with a coat of white, the colors you paint over the white will come out much more vibrant than if you were to paint your colors over the natural wood.

Then I used craft paint, and free-handed some designs.

I wanted to make one of my candle holders festive for the holidays so I decided to make a candy cane candle holder, too.

I wrapped painters tape around my white branch, then painted red on the exposed parts.

When I unwrapped the tape, I did have to do some touch ups because the ridges on the branch allowed for some paint to seep under the tape. But it wasn’t anything major.

Remember to NEVER leave lit candles unattended. Unless you like fire…I mean A LOT of fire! But I’m guessing you probably like your house more than you like fire, so please NEVER leave lit candles unattended.

This is a gorgeous idea! And thank you for sharing how to get rid of the critters. i’ve always wondered about that when I made crafts with branches. Usually I would just spray paint it but the oven step is perfect. Thank you!!